One of the most unique aspects of a Bates education is the senior-year thesis. Unlike the majority of universities and colleges in the United States, Bates requires that every student write a thesis or complete a capstone project to graduate. For many Batsies, their thesis is more than a graduation requirement; it is an opportunity to pursue their academic passions, experience intellectual growth and—for some—it’s an opportunity to make a political statement. 

Above all, their thesis is a deeply individual project. To get to the bottom of what makes a thesis such an important and even life-changing experience for many Batesies, The Student asked students across campus and in myriad majors to get a sense of what makes their thesis so important to them. 

According to many students on campus, their thesis is rooted in personal interests, lived experiences and individual backgrounds, as well as a desire to gain a deeper understanding of themselves through the academic exploration of deeply personal subjects.

Luciana Zaiet ‘26, a double major in German and English, is writing an honors thesis for her German major on her third-great-grandfather—a man who immigrated from Bochum, Germany to Santa Catarina, Brazil before World War I. 

Zaiet’s project combines archival research, family documents, and scholarly work “to try to piece together [her third-great-grandfather’s] story.”

Zaiet describes the project as a “genealogical case study of German immigration to Brazil,” and its importance lies in its power to help her understand her community and family’s sense of identity and belonging in Brazil and Germany. 

For history and art history double major and California native Sam Gabel ’26, her theses are also deeply personal. Her history thesis examines the 1824 Chumash rebellion across three California missions, focusing on Indigenous resistance to colonial control. 

“As a history major, I realized I had never learned the right information, or the proper methodologies to look at California’s Indigenous history,” she said. 

Her art history thesis explores 1960s and ’70s Los Angeles through the work of the Immaculate Heart of Mary nuns and artist Corita Kent—who was a nun and member of the order herself and used her creative work to communicate social justice and Christian themes. 

“It’s nice to learn more about where I grew up,” Gabel added, reflecting on why both her theses are so meaningful to her. 

For Gabel, it is a chance to explore the unfiltered histories of the state and city she calls home.

An international student from Tanzania, history and biology double major Rosina Makwabe’s ‘26  biology thesis is also about a place near and dear to her heart—her home continent, Africa. It is also deeply political.

“My thesis is an analysis of community based natural resource management, and then I re-imagineed what conservation would look like in Africa from an African futurism lens,” she said. 

“I found that the relationship between African people and nature was destroyed during colonialism, and now we live with a lot of those legacies,” Makwabe added. “African people are displaced or undervalued in comparison to nature.”

Growing up in Tanzania, she said, she always took pride in the country’s national parks and the experience of going on safari. That perspective shifted in a class at Bates, where she began to question widely accepted ideas about conservation. 

“Maybe national reserves aren’t everything you think they are,” she recalled a professor saying. “That literally flipped my whole worldview on its head.”

She described her thesis itself as a political act. 

“It’s about reimagining a future that is rooted in African experiences,” she explained, “And when I was writing it, given the political state of the world, I felt very naive, [at times] it felt very unrealistic… And I guess my resistance to that [feeling and the current state of the world] was just to continue writing it like black voices have written and written for centuries before me, and will continue to do that for centuries after.” 

History major Whitney Miller ‘26 agrees with Makwabe that their theses are inherently political and argued that nearly all theses are rooted in the current political climate and status quo. 

“All research is inherently connected to the society we live in,” she said. “The questions we ask are usually questions of power—especially in the social sciences. If you’re not considering how government and other structures of power shape your research, you’re not doing it to the fullest.”

Her thesis traces the history of rent control legislation in New York City, focusing on how it gradually shifted away from tenants’ needs and toward landlords’ profits—a topic with renewed political relevance in today’s New York following Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral victory.

Philosophy major Oliva Smith ‘26 is studying how language—particulary the Russian language’s complex verb of motion system—shapes the way that Russian speakers see the world around them. The thesis is a culmination of her interest in the philosophy of linguistics and her hard work studying Russian at Bates. 

Outside of showing her own academic growth and passions, she believes that applying philosophical thinking to the Russian language will allow her to critically analyze another culture and come to a deeper understanding of it. 

“Philosophy is about critical thinking, and foreign languages—like Russian—are about learning other cultures,” Smith said. “The whole point of a liberal arts education is being able to critically look at things beyond yourself. My thesis looks at the intersection between the truth about the world and how our culture, language, and experience influence how we perceive that truth. Understanding that middle point—our biases and the external factors that shape how we see the world—is essential, because people hurt each other when they don’t understand one another, and language is an incredible way to try to understand [another culture.]” 

For politics major Matthew Peeler ‘26, the language of the Constitution and key SCOTUS decisions are central to his thesis. 

His work explores how Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority decision in District of Columbia v. Heller—which held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms independent of service in a state militia—helped transform the definition of the word from a synonym of national guard to a nearly catch-all term that could apply to all able-bodied Americans. 

Noting that militia appears six times in the Constitution, he said his thesis focuses on the impacts of this definition of militia outside of the Second Amendment context—an issue that, according to Peeler, has not yet been studied in constitutional law. 

Since federal branches like the legislative and executive can exercise control over the militia under the Constitution, he fears that uncritical acceptance of this definition may open a new pathway for the federal government—especially an aggressive Trump administration—to further consolidate political power. 

Caroline McCarthy ‘26, an English major with a creative writing concentration and a hispanic studies major, shared that her thesis is also a response, in part, to terror stoked by the Trump Administration. Rather than an individual fear, she says that her thesis’ focus on the Spanish language is important because “ICE  has been detaining people, kidnapping people, putting people in cages for a long time. But we’re entering a point in politics where people are scared” due to increased ICE raids in immigrant communities like Lewiston, which are creating “a point in politics where people are scared to… own [their own and different] cultures and speak different languages [other than English], even though the US has no official language.” 

Her joint thesis includes 25 original poems in English—over half of which are translated into Spanish—and an analysis of five to ten films originally in Spanish. 

For her, the Spanish component of the joint thesis fills her with the most pride. 

“It has been important to me… to connect with other people who are Spanish speakers, or maybe immigrants or children of immigrants. And I think it really helps people feel seen, especially in a state like Maine, where you don’t encounter a lot of Spanish speakers,” she explained. 

She says her thesis is also an act of activism and resistance to capitalism. 

“I would also say in terms of the poetry, it does feel like activism, because, essentially, in our modern society, it’s pointless and it’s purposeless, right? Like, you’re not going to make money by being a poet. You’re not going to achieve fame by being a poet, and you’re not going to achieve renown by being a poet,” she said. “But it does feel like an active resistance against the constant desire for production.”

For her, “in this world where we’re constantly asked to produce something, or asked how what we’re doing is new, or why it has meaning, returning to art — just to make art — and to understand that art is a reflection of human experience and human connection,” feels revolutionary. 

“It’s like all we’re trying to do is translate life into something tangible that we can understand,” she said reflecting on her art and, indirectly, on the role of theses at Bates. 

Additional reporting by Catalina Passino ’26.